The facts were undeniable: The defendant, one Abraham (no known surname), had teetered on the brink of stabbing his son Isaac to death, only to be stopped by divine intervention.

Luckily he had a lawyer with a thirst for tough cases, not to mention a jury pool consisting exclusively of people who proudly claim to be descended from the accused.

The setting, too, seemed at least mildly favorable: the soaring Fifth Avenue sanctuary of Temple Emanu-El, with twin menorahs on either side of the courtroom.

But who could begrudge him? When the defendant in question is the father of the Jewish people, it seems only right that the trial — even if it is only a mock trial done for educational purposes — should take place in one of the country’s most eminent Reform synagogues, with two of New York’s most prominent Jews sparring over his fate.

For the prosecution: Eliot Spitzer, a former governor and attorney general of New York. For the defense: Alan M. Dershowitz, the Harvard Law School professor who was one of Mr. Spitzer’s former professors but is perhaps better known for defending O. J. Simpson and other notorious clients.

“Better 10 guilty go free than one innocent go to prison,” Mr. Dershowitz intoned from one of the temple’s pulpits, as a robed federal district judge, Alison J. Nathan, listened from behind a judge’s bench flanked by the American and New York State flags. (She admitted to “having serious doubts as to my jurisdiction here,” but proceeded anyway.)

“And who do you think came up with that concept?” Mr. Dershowitz continued, urging the ladies and gentlemen of the jury to hold fast to the principle of reasonable doubt. “Abraham!”

Rejoinder from Mr. Spitzer, who quoted from “a treatise written by a former professor of mine, whom I greatly admire: ‘A contemporary Abraham would be convicted of attempted murder.’ The name of the author on the book’s cover is, not surprisingly, Alan Dershowitz.”

Still, a majority of the jurors bought Mr. Dershowitz’s revised argument. On count one, endangering the welfare of a child, the verdict was 748 votes for not guilty, 529 guilty. On count two, attempted murder: 687 votes for not guilty, 590 guilty.

For those less well-versed in biblical lore, the event had begun with an analysis of the Abraham-Isaac story by Dr. David S. Sperling, a professor at Hebrew Union College. Refresher: God repeatedly promised Abraham and his wife, Sarah, a son. Not until Abraham was a centenarian and Sarah was over 90 was the promise fulfilled. God then decided to test Abraham by ordering him to sacrifice Isaac on a mountaintop. Abraham raised his knife, about to obey, when an angel came to the rescue.

The “voice of God” defense, he reminded the jury, was hardly enough to obscure the fact that Abraham plotted Isaac’s demise without so much as a question or a protest. He even forced Isaac to haul the wood upon which he would be sacrificed.

Besides, Mr. Spitzer reminded the jury, Abraham had already endangered a child: He had thrown his firstborn son, Ishmael (his son with Hagar, Sarah’s handmaiden), out of the house to wander the desert after Isaac was born.

A hint of the politician he had been crept into his voice as he thundered that accepting Abraham’s defense would mean that “we no longer have a civil society.”

“We have a theocracy,” he added. “Not here. Not in the State of New York.”

First he motioned to dismiss the child endangerment charge, arguing that there was no proof that Isaac was under 17 — the age required by law — at the time. By the Bible’s literal accounting, he argued, Isaac would have been far past 17.

Mr. Spitzer pointed out that it took quite some suspension of disbelief to accept that Sarah gave birth at or past age 90 and died at 127.

Undaunted, Mr. Dershowitz moved for a change of venue, to an Orthodox synagogue. “If this were Park East Synagogue down the block,” he said, motioning to Mr. Spitzer, “they wouldn’t just acquit. They’d kick him out!”

Finally, Mr. Dershowitz turned to theology: Abraham and God were merely playing “a game of theological chicken. He never would have plunged that knife.” And furthermore, he argued, quoting Immanuel Kant and Bob Dylan in the same breath, Abraham himself stopped the crime from happening, choosing to drop the knife.

“If you really had a trial, who’s testifying to these conversations” with God? Mr. Spitzer, who belongs to Temple Emanu-El but never had a bar mitzvah, mused as he plucked grapes from a fruit platter. “It would’ve been fun to call a couple witnesses.”

Back onstage, Mr. Dershowitz had already set his sights elsewhere. “I think it would be very good to put God on trial,” he said. “I would take the case, on a contingency fee basis.”

He grinned. “Guaranteed admission to heaven!”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: At Educational Event, a Modern Legal Interpretation of a Biblical Story. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe